Robinhood adds AI agents, perps and weekend trading in push to win active traders

Perps have become one of crypto's dominant trading products because they let traders take leveraged long or short positions without the expiration dates of conventional futures. They have historically been associated with offshore crypto exchanges, while regulatory constraints have limited their availability to U.S. retail traders.

Robinhood plans to offer eligible U.S. customers perpetuals through Robinhood Derivatives and Bitstamp, starting with crypto. Bitcoin and ether contracts will offer leverage of up to 10 times, while other supported assets will start at three times.

The leverage makes the product considerably riskier than buying crypto outright. A relatively small move against a highly leveraged position can trigger liquidation. Robinhood said it deliberately chose lower leverage for more volatile tokens and could adjust the limits over time.

“We do know a lot of people who trade perps want the leverage,” the company’s head of US futures products, Grace Q, said. “But we wanted to start off a little safer with especially the long-tail coins.”

The brokerage is expanding into another type of derivatives trading with earnings contracts.

Offered through Cboe, the binary contracts will let customers trade directly on whether companies hit metrics such as revenue, earnings per share or, in Apple's case, iPhone sales.